deep sea diving in a kiddie pool

Category Archives: humor

Look, I know I’ve been away a long time, so I’m not just going to stroll in here all blase and pretend that nothing has happened and everything is fine between us. I don’t want to insult your intelligence. But summer was rough. The kids were on me like fleas every second for a snack or to validate their latest Lego creation. As soon as they heard the keyboard tapping they’d descend. The pressure was incredible.

It had been my plan to send the kids to camp so that I might have a minute or two of productivity, but Hubs and I had a minor bank account fiasco wherein all of our money mysteriously disappeared. We were both baffled as to how this would happen. Coincidentally this occurred right around the same time that Hubs’s jeep was miraculously cured of many of its major ailments. Weird.

At any rate, I had to sacrifice any dreams of childless alone time. These things happen, so I decided to abandon all productivity and commit myself to fully enjoying the summer with my children. After all, time is fleeting and they won’t be this small forever. Sometimes you just have to grit your teeth, hide the knives and treasure those little buggers.

Here we are treasuring each other on the highway. Note: Hubs stopped talking to all of us immediately after this picture was taken.

I learned some things in the process–about myself, about life. I’m a better person for it, albeit a better person who desperately needs a hair appointment. For instance:

It is physically impossible for me to treasure my children day after day, 24 hours a day without a steady flow of caffeine. Before the summer I had weaned myself off the stuff for health reasons but mid summer I had to weigh the importance of a steady heartbeat against the safety of my prodigies. Heartbeats are overrated.

Five year old boys are physically incapable of being quiet. There is a reason that there was never a book called The Diary of Arnie Frank. It would have lasted two pages and then Arnie would have forgotten about the Nazis and gone running down the hall singing at the top of his lungs while beating on a bucket. End of story. Girls know how to tiptoe and use their indoor voices. You could wrap a boy in foam and he would still find a way to shake the walls. It’s what they do.

Note: I sincerely apologize for using the Jewish holocaust with such flippancy. You’d think I was a twenty-something pop sensation.

“At least I don’t Twerk.”

The more you do with your children, the more they want to do. I can’t emphasize this enough: the key to your child’s happiness is lowered expectations. Providing them with gifts and stimulating activities only gives them unrealistic expectations for the future. Have you ever seen videos of children in third world countries receiving shoes for the first time? They are incredibly happy. My daughter has multiple shoes that she won’t even wear because they aren’t meeting her aesthetic expectations. And for every visit to the trampoline park this summer, I had to listen to ninety additional minutes of “what are we doing that’s exciting today?” and “I want to do something fun,” spoken in a whine and repeated ad nauseam. You know what’s fun? Not working in a sweatshop fifteen hours a day. You’re welcome.

The housing market is so filled with foreign investors equipped with psychic premonition and large quantities of cash that a cop and a stay at home mom can’t afford to purchase any single family home this side of Detroit. It’s remarkable really and further proof that House Hunters is a complete sham. I mean come on, a graduate student and an entry-level marketing coordinator are able to buy a beautiful craftsman style home that isn’t tagged with gang graffiti? That’s a fairytale. You want the real story? Follow us as we look at condemned homes filled with garbage and frightened animals, priced just beyond our range.

Inability to purchase aside, there is nothing my kids love better (with the exception of an overcrowded theme park) than freely snooping through other people’s homes. Open houses became one of our favorite free activities this summer. If summer had gone on any longer we would probably resort to breaking and entering.

The only family vacation we can enjoy without having to sedate Hubs is camping. He is completely relaxed when separated from society and surrounded by dirt, trees and creatures that might carry the Bubonic plague. They are making the ground harder than they used to, which was tough on my delicate frame and after two days of roughing it, my all natural, aluminum free deodorant cashed it in and left me to scare off the bears with my b.o., but other than that, camping was awesome.

Anyway, it’s good to be back. I’ll try not to stay away as long next time.

This picture was taken right after Conor tried to slip under the bar and plummet to his death. You can tell that I’m still mid heart attack.

Warning: The following is a snapshot into my psyche. Much like the movie, The Blair Witch Project, it’s mildly frightening with an unsteady focus that may cause motion sickness and/or trigger epileptic seizures.

I’ve done it. I’ve reached another milestone in my nihilistic life schedule: my 44th birthday. Against all of my personal expectations I exited my 43rd year of existence still breathing. Amazing but true.

If you’re scratching your head right now and wondering why this is such an astounding feat, you can step back in time and read this bad boy to catch up to speed. I’ll wait here.

Take your time. No rush. I’ve got to pick up my son from preschool but he can wait.

Even before my mother died I was obsessed with dying young, a notion fed perhaps by my fervent belief that I was Martin Luther King Jr. reincarnated as a small white female and my misguided romantic notions of martyrdom. I staged my own death at the tender age of five to gauge my family’s reaction. For the record: their reactions were extremely disappointing and I immediately wrote them out of my will, a slight that moved them even less than my faux-death, despite my impressive collection of tattered stuffed animals. Those people were cold.

Actually I was pretty zen about the whole idea of an early death for most of my life, having adopted a Richard Bach death-is-merely-a-new-adventure attitude. I was fairly certain that after death I’d achieve total enlightenment, a huge welcome party at the pearly gates and a perfect complexion, all of which seemed pretty freaking cool. Then I had kids and my zen went out the window along with my sleep schedule, replaced by the irrational fear that I would leave my children to struggle without a mother in Captain Agro’s Mini Boot Camp for Semi-Orphans.

You would think that after my malignant shoulder tumor turned out to be a sore muscle brought on by advancing middle age and I didn’t suffer a fatal heart attack while training for my 5K, I would’ve been freed from my psychotic burden. Not so. By the end of the year I’d battled Parkinson’s, MS and various forms of cancer all within my own imagination while lying in bed planning my memorial service, which by the way will be way better than the memorial service I planned for myself when I was five.

Anyway, I was expecting to feel relieved and elated about breaking the 43rd barrier, like a giant weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I figured I might even throw myself a Dodged That Bullet party or have some sort of wild weekend in Vegas with The Hangover cast. However, when it came right down to it, the thought of outliving my mother didn’t make me want to party. In fact it just made me sad. Just when I think I understand my own psyche. What a buzz kill.

Zach is taking this particularly hard. He didn’t know my mother but he was really looking forward to the wild weekend.

And to top it off I was over-scheduled, which made it hard to properly obsess and wallow in my angst. I kept thinking, “Is this how I want to spend potentially the last few months of my life? I should be reaching enlightenment sitting in an ashram in the heart of India or some other deeply meaningful nonsense that will vex my husband.”

Then (BAM!) my birthday came and went and life went on almost as if I wasn’t the center of the universe, which is weird because I’m pretty sure that I am.

Kidding. I was just trying on narcissism as a possible replacement for hypochondria.

So I’ve been wandering around a little aimlessly in these first couple of weeks of my 44th year. I mean, my death is no longer imminent and my memorial service is already planned, what to do with myself? Perhaps I’ll look at these as bonus years and just do whatever the fark I want (within reason–I do still have children to care for). The ashram is probably out…or maybe not. Do ashrams have reliable child care? I could be ashraming next week. Who knows? I’m a wild card.

This year I talked my daughter, Riley, into having a birthday party in an effort to help her manage her social anxiety. I wanted to show her that being the center of attention doesn’t have to be traumatic in a safe, low pressure environment…and also to make up for the fact that the only other party I threw for her sucked.

Okay, I need you all to look past my fragile ego and narcissism and focus on my desire to be a good mother here. Thank you.

Anyway, this party was much better than the last one. Our theme was Awkward Social Situations in a Chinese Setting, and I think we pulled it off. I’ll admit that the whole theme didn’t fully gel until the middle of the party when one of my daughter’s eight year old friends asked me for my full name and if I had a Facebook account. But then it all fell into place.

Awkward social situations go well with paper lanterns and balls of tissue.

This particular friend is a sweet girl, petite like my daughter with an innocent face…exactly the kind of person who turns out to be a sociopathic stalker in a Lifetime movie. And because that’s the way my brain works, an image of this girl boiling our rabbit on the stove a la Fatal Attraction immediately popped into my head, even though we don’t have a rabbit and the girl is really too young to be cooking without an adult’s supervision.

“I won’t be ignored, Mrs. Redican.”

Since it would be inhospitable to answer “None of your damn business!” to a guest in my home and also highly unlikely that I would be granted a restraining order against a third grader with dimples, I opted for the only reasonable alternative, feigning hearing loss, a language barrier and incontinence.

At that point the other girls were trying to draw and quarter each other in the living room so I figured that she would forget her need for my personal information. Eight year old stalkers have notoriously short attention spans as they are easily distracted by Littlest Pet Shop toys and Justin Bieber. As soon as she was safely in her parent’s car I put it out of my mind.

However, four days later at a school function the same girl approached me and complained that I hadn’t answered her friend request. Having not checked my Facebook page in a couple of days, the complaint caught me off guard. I hadn’t had a chance to carefully craft a casual but responsible response to such a request using my best understanding parent voice.

“Get away from me, evil child!”

Instead I said, “You sent me a Facebook request? I haven’t gotten it,” as if I had a friends list full of minors. Then I ran home and checked my account.

Sure enough, there was a friend request from an eight year old waiting for me which triggered a horrifying string of imagined situations: me hosting keg parties for grade schoolers, getting a stripper for my son’s sixth birthday party, taking prepubescent girls on secret runs for birth control. It’s a slippery slope. One day you accept a friend request from an eight year old and the next day you’re on trial for having inappropriate relations with your Middle School student.

I told myself that I was overreacting. I don’t even have a teaching credential.

To which I responded: Of course I’m overreacting. THAT’S WHAT I DO! You cannot expect me to receive a friend request like this and not descend into a downward spiral of parental panic anymore than you can expect me to sprout wings and fly. It’s in my nature.

Point taken.

But to be fair to my psyche, because it’s the only one I’ve got, an eight year old girl friending adults on social media who her parents don’t really know is dangerous. It might be antiquated thinking but I’m not a big fan of kids this age on social media to begin with. I’d like to go back to the days when kids played on the street without having to worry that some pedophile they met in a chat room was going to abduct them or that the suggestive pictures they took on their smart phone and then forwarded to the boy they had a crush on were being circulated across the internet. Thank God there were no smart phones in the 80s or there would be suggestive pictures of me all over cyber space.

Am I right, Lisa?

And even more importantly, where would I spill intimate details about my children and their tiny stalker-like friends or look at inappropriate memes and risqué comments if my Facebook news feed was invaded by young impressionable eyes? Seriously, you can’t expect me to be responsible all of the time and you really can’t expect that of my friends, some of whom are at least as crazy as I am.

So it looks like I’m going to have to have an awkward conversation with somebody’s mother while trying to avoid suggesting that their child is a stalker and/or that they are a bad parent. Am I the only one that doesn’t see this going well?

Well it was inevitable, I suppose. There are certain things that naturally occur. If you have a keg party somebody is going to pass out on your bed and if there is a mass tragedy somebody is going to come up with a conspiracy theory. And then you will read about it on your Facebook page in between pictures of somebody’s dinner and a cute meme.

So it seems that there is a small but vocal community that believes that the bombing was staged. Apparently, the wounded people on the ground were not acting as freshly bombed as one would expect and there was insufficient arterial blood spray. In a tragedy you want as much arterial blood spray as possible, you see. Duh. I saw enough Friday the 13th movies to know that. Without it you’re just making another Leprechaun.

This picture and caption would have also worked as a promo for the Mr. and Mrs. Smith movie.

Anyway, the conspiracy theorists were kind enough to put up a sequence of post bombing pictures and walk me through “the staging” so that I could see for myself how it actually went. It was impressively narrated by someone with professed EMT credentials. I took them at their word about their credentials because people on the internet never lie. At least that is what I was told by the West African man who requested emergency funds and nude pictures from me. The conspiracy theorists didn’t state how many bombings and staged bombings they’d been to but I’m sure it is extensive.

Anyway I was totally with them through their conspiracy lesson right up until they added the Newtown shootings and 9/11 as additional staged tragedies. That gave me pause because, wow, what a talented group of tragedy stagers that would take! I mean, as anyone who has ever seen an Ed Wood movie can tell you, it’s really hard to make fake planes look real. Or maybe the planes were real and the buildings were fake? Or maybe the whole scene was claymation? Okay, I’ll admit I’m fuzzy on the details of that particular conspiracy, because I tend to tune out and start thinking of possible paint colors for my living room when people talk about it.

“I want to be a terrorist!”

But here is what I do know based on my history as an occasionally employed actress and frequent movie goer:

You never go smaller with the sequel.

You don’t pull off a mega blockbuster and then follow it up with a quietly heartbreaking independent film. George Lucas didn’t make Star Wars and follow it up with The Empire Suffers Quietly In A Coffee Shop. It’s not the Hollywood way. If you have successfully staged the attack and annihilation of a section of New York by foreign terrorists then you have to go even bigger for your next staging. Like the annihilation of the entire Midwest by aliens. Am I right? Tom Cruise, back me up on this.

“It’s no staging. The mother ship is coming.”

So I was totally ready to write this whole conspiracy thing off, but then I got to thinking. I’ve had a lot of birthdays–what if those were all staged by the government? What if I’m not 43? Which would make a lot of sense given my maturity level, fashion sense and fondness for Dubstep.

And once I’d made that leap the next logical question was…

What if nothing bad has ever happened: the holocaust, Hiroshima, that weird dude I slept with in my 20s because I felt sorry for him. What if none of that had happened? What if I’m really 21 and sitting in a pod somewhere with a plug in my head? What if I’m Neo or that really hot chick in the black latex suit who can do flips in slow-mo? What if I’m the chosen one sent to free all of you from your pods?

“Whoa.”

You said it, Keanu.

That is a massive responsibility and some mornings I can’t even find my car keys. But I’m not going to shirk my duty. I will not leave you plugged in like last year’s iPad. You’re getting upgraded! Or downgraded. Actually I’m confused by my metaphor, but the point is that all of the hours I spent watching X-Files episodes and last week’s Mud Run has prepared me for this moment. I will not let you down!

PS. Does anyone have any Baby Powder I can borrow? I’m having a hard time getting into my latex suit. You know what, I’m just going to wear some black yoga pants instead. Don’t take the blue pill!

My in-laws were just in town for two glorious weeks. During their visit Hubs and I got not one, not two, but THREE date nights! Have I mentioned how much I love my in-laws? Yes? Okay then.

As Hubs and I usually space our date nights to once every Pope, I valued every single minute of bonus alone time I got with him, but one date was extra special. Hubs took me on an insider tour of his old patrol division in South Central. (We’re not supposed to call it South Central anymore because apparently the name has a negative connotation and by changing the name we have magically made all of its problems go away, but I’m a rebel).

Yep, changing the name makes it all better.

Right now I bet you’re thinking, “those two love birds sure know how to carve out moments of romance.” And you’d be right. We surely do.

I’ve been bugging Hubs to take me to that particular division for a while so that I could accurately describe it in my unpublished work of burgeoning genius, but every time I suggested it Hubs would get a look on his face as if he’d suddenly developed hemorrhoids and one of them had exploded. Apparently, according to crime stats, his own personal experience and the movie End of Watch, that area is dangerous and he loves me. Also he doesn’t know where all of our important paperwork is or how much Tylenol the kids get. But due to the UWBG (unpublished work of burgeoning genius) I would not let it rest.

So when he turned to me and actually suggested it on his own without any coercion or overt emotional blackmail I jumped up and down and ran to pick out my best South Central touring outfit before he changed his mind.

It’s Christmas for unpublished authors in the ghetto.

Then I ran back out:

Me: If someone starts shooting at us, is it better for me to recline in my seat or lean forward?Hubs: I’d recommend getting down on the floor so you have the protection of the–Me: Engine block! Right!

(Yes this was our actual conversation and no, it isn’t unusual for us to discuss things like this.)

At that point I may or may not have wet my pants a little in excitement and had an elaborate fantasy wherein Hubs and I were in a gun fight and I took a bullet in the shoulder and had to dive over the hood of my car to take cover behind said engine block. Then as I was losing consciousness, cradled in Hubs’s arms I said, “promise me that your next wife will be ugly and good with the children,” and Hubs laughed through his tears, realizing that I was the most bad@ss wife in the entire world.

I love that fantasy.

Then Hubs generously armed himself, I packed tasty South Central touring snacks and we departed in a ball of excitement (admittedly all mine). I was so filled with joy and gratitude that I actually let Hubs drive my new leased pride and joy and only commented on his Captain Agro driving style once on the freeway. Once we got into the neighborhood I forgot to care about the welfare of my car because it was SO EXTREMELY AWESOME!

This church is on Trinity street and the Holy Spirit burned its roof right off.

It was even better than my Ride Along in Rampart Division, when I got to see a felony arrest, a perimeter and ride Code 3 (lights and sirens) to a call, and it’s hard to beat that. Hubs is the best South Central tour guide and heavily armed husband EVER!

Seriously, he’s the Starsky to my Hutch, the Crockett to my Tubbs, the Gyllenhaal to my Peña…huh, it looks like I took you on an unintentional homoerotic tour of famous cop shows. Alrighty then.

“This was the best date night ever.”

Hubs expertly navigated the ‘hood, showing me the locations I’d used in my UWBG and some that applied to the work stories he’s shared, like “this is where I was chasing that gangster and we got hit by the Volvo” and “this is where I was wrestling with that guy on PCP and my partner stood back and watched.” He pointed out houses of “frequent fliers,” kept me informed of which gang’s territory we were in, answered all of my questions and pointed out some interesting characters and idiosyncrasies of the neighborhood while people stared at us as if they’d never seen a giddy, suburban soccer mom touring their neighborhood before.

Then Hubs took me to a really cute little Mexican place for lunch where I bought some souvenirs.

What? You thought I brought home a bag of crack and an undocumented worker? You need to look at your code of ethics, my friend. And anyway, you can totally buy those on the internet.

As it turns out I’ve actually been in that division a few times on my own, which I thought was very cool. It reminded me of my pre-Hubs days when I regularly wandered neighborhoods in which I could get mugged or at least need a tetanus shot. Hubs was not as excited about that realization as I was.

I understand his concern. He just doesn’t realize the extent of my bad@ssery. But one day when we’re in that gun fight…

My son, Conor, had a little “work done” a couple of weeks ago. That’s the Hollywood term for surgery, though in Conor’s case it doesn’t refer to a cosmetic procedure. No Brazilian Butt Lift here. In fact, nothing major at all. Just a little abdominal surgery to repair a hernia. No biggie. I was totally casual about the whole thing. Totally.

On the outside.

On the inside, I was a ball of anxiety because my baby was going under general anesthesia and I worried that he would handle it as well as I do, which is to say not well at all. My body is generally against drugs, especially anything that threatens to relieve pain, and reacts like a tweaker in an imaginary snake pit. It’s charming to watch, just ask Hubs.

My daughter, Riley, was also experiencing some anxiety over Conor’s surgery, saying comforting things like, “when they cut Conor open…” and “if Conor dies…”, so I scheduled a busy day for all of us the day before the surgery to keep our minds off of the whole thing.

Riley has an overactive imagination. I don’t know where she gets it.

This picture is in no way meant to suggest that she gets it from me. Or that I’ve lost half my teeth.

At the end of the day Conor collapsed into bed, which is when I noticed that he was FILTHY. Evidently at school he’d decided to roll in the sand and climb through a carburetor. Since it was well past bed time and my sweet boy is not known for his sunny morning disposition or ability to retain a great attitude without sleep or food, I let my little hobo fall asleep in the midst of his filth, thinking that I’d clean him up before we left in the morning.

Good plan…

if the giant Coke I had for lunch hadn’t fed my anxiety, which in turn fueled some situational insomnia. I stared at the ceiling most of the night and slipped into a deep sleep right before the alarm went off. At least I assume it went off. I didn’t hear it. I woke up with just enough time to throw on clothes, grab Conor, plop him in the car and make it to the Children’s Hospital by his 6:00 a.m. check in, where I repeatedly apologized to every nurse within earshot for bringing in a stinky, unwashed child for surgery.

Seriously, I can’t remember the last time I was ever that embarrassed over my parental shortcomings. I mean general incompetence is fine but hygiene neglect…that’s just wrong.

“Mama doesn’t wash me til the creek thaws and the hogs are slaughtered.”

Three hours of shame and two meltdowns later (Conor found the blood pressure cuff and tiger pajamas traumatizing), he was in surgery and I was staring blankly at a wall in the waiting room.

Don’t let the drunken joie de vivre fool you, he despises those pajamas.

According to the surgeon, the procedure went off without a hitch. The recovery nurse might have had a different take on the whole experience however, because it seems that Conor also suffers from a tiny sensitivity to general anesthesia, which came in the form of explosive diarrhea and an intense desire to roll around in it. Thank God, Hubs had arrived by that point to help our recovery nurse because I had all but shut down and could only stand there with a box of juice and a popsicle in my hands watching the carnage with mild detachment.

Standing there uselessly I had plenty of time to wonder about things such as why Hubs has absolutely no problem with gay men, but is deeply offended by Vespas, Mazda Miatas and small fluffy white dogs. And also why the nurse didn’t know what the word “defecating” meant which seemed to me like a word that a nurse should know.

The recovery nurse finally shoved Conor into an adult sized diaper and signed his discharge papers before he soiled the entire recovery wing.

At the end of the day Conor had face planted off the recliner and the couch, as well as crapped his way through two gurneys, four diapers, two pairs of pajamas and a new rug. Impressive. But we are fairly certain the hernia is gone.

And he got to take home a glove balloon and crap-filled adult diaper. Score!

My inlaws are in town and between entertaining family and my manic redecorating urges I just haven’t had time to write witty prose. I apologize.

If we don’t abuse them they really don’t feel like they’ve visited.

However I thought that to tide you all over I would include a list of some of the thoughts that have graced my cerebral cortex over the past week–just a sampling of what it’s like to be inside my skull. You should be warned that some of these thoughts are inappropriate. Many are disturbing and nonsensical. Some of you might not want to know me this well.

Ready? Alrighty, here we go:

I’d be funnier if I was English…or black…or English and black…or is that like putting the positive sides of two batteries together?

When I die I won’t be able to suck in my stomach. I’m going to look bloated and saggy. I hope I don’t die naked.

What if I die in a public place and then everyone sees me crap myself and I’m not around to explain that I don’t normally do that?

How would I ever date again now that I’m so gassy? What if I found love again but the guy was offended by farting? I think Hubs will be my only husband. If he dies I’ll live alone and make pottery.

Is my face too old for my hair?

Is my face too old for my dance moves?

I should get derma planing. But what if they accidentally stabbed my eye and then everyone would know that I lost an eye because I was vain?

What if I got a boob job and died on the table and then my kids would always think that boobs were more important to me than they were?

Is my vagina attractive enough to do porn? What makes a vagina attractive enough to do porn? Is that a thing? Maybe anyone with a vagina can do porn.

What if I was decapitated and then my face looked like one of those sad Nixon rubber masks?

If I ever have to have chemo and lose my hair everyone will see all of the bumps on my head. I’d have to get a wig. I hate wigs. I hope I don’t get cancer in the summer.

Do I have too many moles to wear a backless gown to the Oscars?

Will the rats in the heating ducts give us all the Hanta Virus? Would Hubs get into trouble if he had to shoot one? What makes a suburban rat shooting legally justified? How do you repair bullet holes in hardwood floors?

What if I’m on a road trip and break down in a place where I can earn the money for my car repair by winning a pole dancing contest but I’m not wearing nice underwear? Or I’m bloated?

What if I’m in a car accident while on my period and I fall into a coma and then I get toxic shock because no one takes out my tampon?

What if my heart stops and they have to use the paddles but they forget to take out my nose ring and it burns off my nostril?

If I had to run for my life without any clothes on how would I contain the jiggle? I should become a self defense bad@ss so I never have to run for my life naked.

So there you have it: some of my thoughts. Yes, I worry too much about things that will probably never happen. And yes, I am at times alarmingly morbid, vain and shallow. I have occasionally endeavored to cut down on the sheer quantity of garbage that floats through my head. But then I worry that I’d be boring or, even worse, so happy and peaceful that I’d die like in Downton Abbey or that movie City of Angels. As a responsible parent I can’t let that happen. My children need me: f*cked up but alive.